Good Monday, Gamer!
I ran our first session of Edge of the Empire. I'm calling this series The Outer Rim Blues. The crew, out of solid leads, returns to Gelgelar Free Port, their base of operations. But their YT-3000s sublight drives fail on them right after jumping out of hyperspace, and they jury rig repairs by scrapping their dorsal gun for parts! I LOVE, LOVE these 3-axis of results dice. Out in the swamps of Gelgelar, they meet and cut a deal with a Mandalorian named Thane Rook. He'll tell them where their refugees are going and give them a contact in exchange for Drace, our pilot doing the Corellian Run for him. They are headed to Eriadu to meet an agent of the Black Sun cartel; they have taken the refugees. Later, while waiting for the droid cargo loaders to load up tanks of Gelgelar swamp gas and crates of mold for export. An old co-worker of Darro Vane (PC, Outlaw Technician) arrives with two speeders worth of aliens and blasters hot on his trail. This forces the crew to depart quickly, leaving half the cargo behind… And now I must find trade rules to use because in Sci-Fi RPGs with player-owned starships, one player ALWAYS wants to trade goods. 🤣
Last week, I saw Arden Vul, a vast mega dungeon from Expeditious Retreat Press, on sale at Humble Bundle, motivating me to run it via Old School Essentials with the advanced options. I played a session in Jason Lute's amazing run at it; I'm inspired to take a turn, too! I've said it before, there is something magical about the open table, "West Marches" mode of gaming for me.
And speaking of Mega-Dungeons in Space! I've been playing with a Blades in the Dark position-inspired mechanic as a Trait set in my Debt Punk game using Cortex Prime RPG. The other sets are Distinctions, Specialties, Signature Assets, and Resources. We're using a "Keep 2 dice" with a base effect of D6. The working ‘position’ names are 'Cake Walk', 'Risky', 'SNAFU'. It's an assignment of D6, D8, and D10.
I've only got one session of IRL play. We used the fictional situation to determine the position; it's too soon to say it's fun. However, I am thinking about play mechanics to shift the position. The other addition I’ve made is having a ‘debt score’ for each PC. The game is to clear your debt score; go home. Starting with character creation, things add to that score. Equipment ‘bought’ increases that score. Break, lose, destroy not-your-stuff —yep, add it to your debt. Right now it’s just a number, I see thresholds that trigger game states, maybe even a social status among debtors 🤷🏾♂️ I’m still playing with it.
I keep suckering myself into the dream of a big west marches dungeon exploration game. One day!
Debt feels like an inverted Stash! I wonder if the Blades idea for Trauma and retiring a character might be a valuable hack for this Debt idea.